Questions and Answers

Toyota Camry & Chevy Blazer Problems Q. I have a 1988 Toyota Camry with a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine with 215,000 miles. The car runs great, when it starts. The electrical issues are driving me nuts! A few months ago a put a new trunk deck on it off of a 1990 Toyota Camry. I used my old tail lights and wiring harness from the 1988 trunk deck.

But what's odd is the outside tail lights, those not on the trunk deck, don't light up. But the brake lights on the outside do light up.

The second issue is with my charging system as I'm lead to believe by another article available on your site. The brake light and charging system light would stay lit all the time and the battery would eventually die after driving for a while, so I took my alternator to a local parts shop and they tested it, and said it had failed, so I went ahead and bought a new alternator and installed it.

Jumped the car and let the alternator charge the battery for about 35-45 min. It ran great all that evening after I had done the install, the next morning I drove the car 20 miles downtown to work, and 20 miles back that evening, but as I got near home the charging light and brake light started going off again, this time only when I'd slow down below 30 or so MPH.

The alternator is brand new, and the battery is only about six months old. My father believes that this could be caused by the new trunk not having a metal on metal connection with the trunk hinges. I'm not so sure.

I've had an after market CD player in for the entire time I've owned the car. I'm not sure what is wrong any help you can provide would be excellent!

I have another question for you also. I also own a 1994 Chevy S-10 Blazer with a 4.3 Liter Vortech Central Port Injection engine. About a year ago I started experiencing problems with my ABS, the light would flash on randomly. then when I would brake the ABS would kick in on dry pavement and under normal braking.

I took the blazer to a local shop and they replaced a wheel speed sensor, this didn't fix my problem. I went on vacation for a week and left the truck with the mechanic again to try and correct the problem, they called me later that week saying my truck was running very rough. I told them not to do any work.

Then when I went to the truck it ran horrible! It would run like new for a few minutes, then start to idle and drive very rough. I was told it was a bad catalytic converter and I replaced it, that didn't help.

Then I was told it was a valve issue. I'm not sure what the problem is, it just runs rough and doesn't want to accelerate smoothly. Power is intermittent so sometimes it seems to drive okay and other times it feels like the motor is trying to pull a massive load and sounds like its going to explode. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Josh

A. First the Chevy Blazer problem. Most likely it sucked in a piece of intake manifold gasket. Very common for this engine. So I would make that the first thing to check for.

Then I would do a fuel pressure test to see if the fuel pump and fuel pressure regulator are doing their jobs correctly.

As for the Toyota Camry, the light issues are most likely due to ground problems. I would run a ground, jumper, wire from the trunk lid to the body and to the grounds on the lights so all three are connected. If the lights start working properly, then you can install a more permanent ground wire.

I doubt the trunk lid problem has anything to do with the charging problem. If the Charge light and brake light come on when engine rpm decreases, the first thing I would check is the alternator belt tension. A slipping alternator belt will cause the symptom you describe.

If that checks out good, I would put the battery on a slow charge until all the cells read 12.75 on a battery hydrometer. Then I would have the alternator and battery retested in the car.